It is my belief that my mother suffered a great deal during her life. I am not suggesting she suffered more than anyone else, only that I think she dealt with a lot.

From the emotional standpoint, the death of her beloved father when she was only 22 and the unfaithfulness of my father, the love of her life, after 28 years of marriage were significant blows.

Physically speaking, she suffered many years with low back pain from a sports injury in her early 20s and a myriad of other bodily malfunctions throughout her life, culminating with the manifestation of Alzheimer’s.

What I glean from her history with pain and suffering is that it either made her more compassionate and understanding with others or simply solidified her innate compassion and understanding; because if she was anything, she was these two things.

Dr. Richo says an important thing to remember about this “given” of life is that pain is not punishment, and pleasure is not reward. Both are simply features of our existence.

We are apt to think that if we eat right, exercise, get enough rest, avoid too much of the vices, and do all the other right things, then our health will be near perfect. There is truth in that, but that is not the end-all.

With such a limited expanse of thought, how do we explain the man who just passed his cardiac checkup with flying colors and died of a massive heart attack the next day while working in his yard? How do we explain all the little patients at St. Jude’s Hospital who are suffering with rare and difficult diseases and yet aren’t even old enough to have developed vices?

Just a few simple examples make this “divine health” argument fall apart.

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin writes, “Dark and repulsive though it is, suffering has been revealed to us as a supremely active principle for the humanization and the divinization of the universe.”

In other words, pain and suffering are mechanisms by which we grow.

Suffering is not a jagged lightning bolt flying from the forefinger of an angry God and pointed at a perpetrator. Pain is not “being sent to your room” or made to “stand in the corner” because of some mistake.

Pain and suffering are not imposed—they simply exist. To be human is to be vulnerable to pain and suffering.

Dr. Richo writes, “…an ego that cannot accommodate vulnerability and move through it is a hazard to spiritual development.”

Once again the “unconditional yes” is the healthiest response to pain and suffering. The healthy response allows us to seek significance, not answers.